And within, Circe, standing by the hearth, kept burning atonement-cakes without wine, praying the while that she might stay from their wrath the terrible Furies, and that Zeus himself might be propitious and gentle to them both, whether with hands stained by the blood of a stranger or, as kinsfolk, by the blood of a kinsman, they should implore his grace.
But when she had wrought all her task, then she raised them up and seated them on well polished seats, and herself sat near, face to face with them.

And at once she asked them clearly of their business and their voyaging, and whence they had come to her land and palace, and had thus seated themselves as suppliants at her hearth.

For in truth the hideous remembrance of her dreams entered her mind as she pondered; and she longed to hear the voice of the maiden, her kinswoman, as soon as she saw that she had raised her eyes from the ground.

For all those of the race of Helios were plain to discern, since by the far flashing of their eyes they shot in front of them a gleam as of gold.

So Medea told her all she asked--the daughter of Aeetes of the gloomy heart, speaking gently in the Colchian tongue, both of the quest and the journeyings of the heroes, and of their toils in the swift contests, and how she had sinned through the counsels of her much-sorrowing sister, and how with the sons of Phrixus she had fled afar from the tyrannous horrors of her father; but she shrank from telling of the murder of Apsyrtus.